A Modern Day Quisling (Hour 2)

Live across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Crichtlow powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Wissota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Crichtlow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 6 0 6 on this Friday morning, April 25th, 2025.

And it's another beautiful morning to have you here up north.

Live from Lake Wissota, from wherever you're listening across the Civic Media radio network.

on the Civic Media app, watching us on YouTube or Facebook, listening later by podcast, maybe listening as you stand in a rainy parking lot in Green Bay, waiting for the next draft picks to come up.

Anyway, thanks for starting your day right here.

I got a question for you.

How'd you like that moment when the Packers drafted a receiver?

I mean, honestly, I was asleep by then.

but I listened back to it first thing this morning.

It was such a cool moment to wake up to.

So in case you missed it, like me, we will play it back for you in just a moment or two.

But first, let's tell you what's coming up on the program today.

We will talk to Dr. Kristen Lierly, not only about what things were like inside the NFL draft festivities because she was going there, but we'll also talk about the Trump administration trying to come up with ways to encourage women to have more babies.

It's a very odd way to address a worker shortage made worse by their anti-immigrant policies and their opposition to things like paid family leave, affordable childcare, guaranteed health insurance coverage.

But here, here's a $5,000 check that should cover things.

We'll talk to her about that.

We will talk about Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's embarrassment as government lawyers appear to risk their careers by mistakenly, quote unquote, filing paperwork showing his flimsy defense in an ongoing legal spat with New York City.

We'll visit live with Devon Remaker.

He's currently the Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

He's in the race to become the next Wisconsin Democratic Party State Chair.

We will, of course, have our Friday week in review panel with journalists Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob and former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel.

Courier newsrooms Keva Keel will be along in just about 20, 25 minutes and he will talk about the week's national headlines.

Dan Schumacher will be along looking ahead to the weekend in sports and at the picks made by the teams in the NFC Norris Division.

Still one of the.

greatest Chris Berman nicknames ever, giving it the Norris Division moniker.

Along the way, of course, you can join the program 855-75CIVIC 855-7524842 at this early hour.

So many folks perform, perform.

No, prefer a text and you can text it at that same number.

855-75CIVIC.

You can also use the Civic Media app.

to either call the show or text the show.

Or you can put something up on Facebook, as Roger did in Steven's point just now.

Good morning, Pat.

I could hear the 200,000 plus draft fans cheer and echo 100 miles to the west.

when they selected a wide receiver.

I don't doubt that for a moment, Roger.

And we'll talk about that in just a second.

First, though, we've got to get to our state forecast.

And this is not what Brittany originally wrote here, Greg Bach, who joins us from Radio Park right now.

But she almost wrote it as a poem.

It almost rhymed enough.

Yeah.

Then I decided to channel my inner Nipsey Russell.

Oh boy, we're skewing really old here folks match game 75.

All right.

So basically what she took what she sent sounds like this a low pressure system will dampen the day with better conditions not too far away.

The draft day crowds are no fans of the clouds but that won't change the state forecast for today.

Rain ending this morning in the West afternoon in the East, still cloudy, breezy, cooler than average highs in the upper forties up north to the upper fifties down south.

A north wind today at 10 to 20 miles an hour, gusting to 30.

We're going to be dealing with wind chills again today, aren't we, Mr. Bach?

Yeah, of course we are.

Cause that's just where we live now.

That's just, we get, we get like a morning of sunshine, then an afternoon of rain and just, you know,

why can't we have nice things?

We can.

on saturday and sunday.

Tonight, mostly clear and cold lows will be in the low thirties up north mid thirties in the south and north winds still at 10 to 15 miles an hour sunny over the weekend and by monday much warmer but also a chance of severe weather.

on Monday as well.

6am temperatures include 44 here in Chippewa Falls, 38 in Hayward, 42 in Amory, 44 in Wasaw, 45 in Rapids, La Crosse is at 49, Green Bay is at 44, Madison 47 and it's 43 in the Milwaukee area.

How are you doing?

Did you watch any of the

draft?

I did not.

I was doing a show at a private party in Janesville at a winery.

Oh my gosh, you put on the miles.

Yeah.

I will say though, Pat, my goodness, like, so I live in Kenosha.

I live in a city party, Kenosha.

And it wasn't but 20 minutes driving due west.

And I was just in beautiful farmland for the rest of the car.

And it was, I just kept looking out at the expanse and how wonderful it was.

I just kept asking myself, I just want to like pull up to these.

pull up to these houses and be like, how are you guys doing?

Are you guys okay?

Everyone okay?

How are we doing right now?

It's okay if we're not.

Blink twice if you're not.

I loved the driving around, both as a reporter and then as a legislator and a candidate.

I loved knocking on doors.

I loved meeting people.

Again, the one or two were...

They were very much the exception, not the rule and didn't dissuade you.

And just makes it a, it just shows you why this is a great place to live and drive around and see things and meet people.

I just love it.

Yeah.

It was wonderful.

As Todd says every day at the top of his show in the afternoons, it's a great day to be a Wisconsinite.

That's true.

It really is.

And it was a great show and they were very, very fun.

Uh, it was, it was, it was a good, it was a good evening.

Got home.

And what was the best part is the show started like six.

I went on about like, I don't know.

It was like six 30.

I was in my car by seven 15 and a home by eight 45.

Oh, that worked out all right.

Yeah.

It was no great.

Cool.

Uh, along the wave course, you noticed more than a couple of different license plates.

And I say that because in our newsletter today, Christina Lori takes note that this is national license plate day.

And we will explain why in our history lesson coming up later this hour.

But she does note that it's not just for registering vehicles.

There's something aesthetic about it.

Every state wants their own plate to be distinctive.

And there's all kinds of designs out there.

But you know, there's still enough traditionalists that if they had it their way, we'd just go right back to the yellow and black license.

Oh, absolutely.

And we would just, just leave it as is.

And I'm really surprised they don't have that as an option, as a throwback vintage.

Cause you got so, yeah, you got brewers and there's a Packers one, right?

There's Packers one.

Yeah, I think so.

Brewers, Packers, Bucks, there's the Trail one.

There are so many options.

Give a vintage one, yellow and black.

I know.

There's also one that always throws me off.

It's for the Road America course.

Yeah,

that weird like shape.

The course that shape is close enough to the shape of Minnesota that it always throws me like, wait, what is that?

And you realize, no, no, it's, it's a Wisconsin plate.

So anyway, there's a story about the, the many designs in the many states that you can see.

Uh, that again is in our newsletter.

You can sign up for it over at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

And of course, I'll have my Sunday morning Wisconsin politics edition of the newsletter.

coming out this weekend, whenever I get around to writing it, I guess that's on today's to do list.

All right, let's let's get to talking about the draft here, because it was just it was just a big old tailgate party.

The final attendance estimate for last night, 205,000 people.

Wow.

By comparison, the population of Green Bay, the city, is 107,000.

So, and the rain by and large held off.

I kept looking at the radar and it was one of those where Green Bay was right off the edge of the storm system and the stuff was kind of breaking up before it would get to the Green Bay.

So, I mean, that was really good news for all the crowd.

So, that was nice.

Then you had what I thought was

I thought it was a nice touch.

The commissioner, Roger Goodell, and his entourage of former Green Bay Packers, don't just walk out on stage.

They come riding out on kids' bikes, just like the Packer players do during training camp.

Oh,

that's right.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I thought that was kind of a neat touch.

The kids were out there too.

They included Mason Crosby, Amon Green, Randall Cobb, Clay Matthews.

And Clay Matthews did something that I don't know if it got him in trouble or not, but he kind of rushed the podium from the commissioner and he said, I want to read this.

I just got this from President Trump.

And I'm like, what's this about?

And I'm sure the commissioner's thinking the same thing.

And he opens up the letter and he turns it around and in great big letters he reads it and it says, to the NFL draft fans, the bears still suck.

And of course, the crowd just erupts.

Like I said, I don't know if the commissioner necessarily approved that, but it was a quality moment.

Oh my

gosh.

Yesterday I made a crack when we were talking to Paul Newton.

I said, you can't spell embarrassing without bears.

And a guy goes, uh, Packer fans don't know the word that you, the word bear isn't in the word embarrassing.

I'm like, all right, next time I'll say, you can't spell the word embarrassing without B E A R S. My goodness.

We

literally,

we literally have to spell it out for you.

Uh,

Now, here's the thing coming into this draft.

And there were people, you know, throughout the country that were noting this and certainly in Wisconsin, the Packers appear to have been allergic for all these years.

They will not draft a wide receiver.

They just won't.

And it's been a source of frustration for fans on draft day for many, many years, which.

leads us to this electric moment when Brian Goodecoots, the GM, steps up to the podium, listened to the crowd, pulled us off the TV feed, listened to the announcers as well as the crowd.

Here comes the Packers picking in the first round of the draft.

With a 23rd pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, the 13-time world champion, Green Bay Packers, for the first time since 2002.

Listen to this crowd.

Oh, baby.

Matthew Golden, wide receiver of Texas.

And he's here.

And he's here.

I'll tell you what, timing is everything.

You wait till the draft is in Green Bay.

You go get a man for the green and gold named Golden.

You can't strip this any better.

The

crowd was just electric.

Obviously, mostly Packer fans.

But frankly, I'm sure people that weren't necessarily from Green Bay got to experience the moment.

And Roger, thank you for the correction.

It was Mark Murphy at the podium there, making the draft pick and help.

It was a great moment.

And of course, his name is Golden.

And he's got this big G necklace that he's wearing up to the podium.

And he looked very happy to be there.

So it was very

WWE.

It was very, very there was wrestling vibes like, you know, like listening to the commentators lose it when something happens in a match.

But yeah, it was a lot of great excitement.

Yeah, it was it was a nice thing to wake up to.

And look, the pick wasn't that bad either.

Let's see.

He had a 40 yard dash time of 4.29

days.

He can get deep for Jordan Love and he averages more than 20 yards of catch in nine games last year for Texas.

And the last part, I know it's pithy.

I know it's petty.

I don't care.

Aaron Rogers.

You know, he was just eating his heart out going, I could be thrown to this guy, but you decided to be a whining little baby man.

No, because

Aaron doesn't like new people and

he wouldn't throw it

on anyways.

That's a very good point.

So again, I think things worked out well for everybody.

Yeah, yeah, that's just fine.

The Brewers did not have as good a day.

We'll talk about that on the other side of the break and get to the rest of the day's headlines as well.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend a part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlo and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

More after this.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Hey, good morning.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you here up north on this Friday morning, April 25, 2025.

Coming up this hour.

We will have a forecast from Brittany Merleau in just a second, including for the second round of the NFL draft at Lambeau Field.

Former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel will be here along with journalist Mark Jacob and Jennifer Scholls here.

We can review panel.

We'll talk about some of this week's headlines coming up, including on a serious note, a sentencing yesterday for the

person who engaged in a mass shooting at a parade in Illinois killing seven people and almost did the same in Madison a couple of years back.

So we'll talk to Jim Santel about that.

Dan Schumacher will be along later this hour.

We'll talk a bit about the NFL Draft and who got picked throughout the NFC Central, of course, as well.

Then in our next hour, our eight o'clock hour, our new third hour, we will talk to Dr. Kristen Lierly.

about the folks in the Trump White House who want to come up with some kind of a national plan to encourage women to have more babies but you know not give them the things that

Moms say that they need that would encourage them to expand their families And then we'll wrap things up by talking to Devin Remaker one of the candidates to be the next state chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin He's the current executive director of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

So that all that is coming up Just a reminder if you missed our last hour

You can do a couple of different things.

You can go over to the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.

And from there, you can learn all about the shows and the stations.

You can, you know, as well subscribe as a podcast.

So listen back to the shows or at the Civic Media website or as a podcast.

We'd love to have you up to date on everything that we're talking about.

We're talking about.

the weather right now with meteorologist Brittany Merleau.

Greg Bach is down at Radio Park as well and Brittany I don't know what the whole evening was like but a couple of different times I was noticing the lack of like a downpour or anything on the on the 205,000 people in Green Bay yesterday for the draft and it seemed like looking at the radar

like this big old blob of rain was running from like Rochester, Minnesota, through the Chippewa Valley, through Wausau, then up to like Iron Mountain in Marquette, Michigan, and that Green Bay was just to the east of it and kind of missed a big chunk of it, which was rather nice.

It was kind of like a good NFL lineman, just kind of blocking, keeping that all the way.

And that answers

sports talk for today, everybody.

Wow.

Seriously, it was.

It was pretty cool to see, you know, like you said, the rain was filling in everywhere else but leaving the Fox Valley alone for a wonderful night for them.

I don't think today, at least when the gates open at noon is going to be much better.

Unfortunately, we do have that rain that wants to push in right at noon into Green Bay and lasting through about five o'clock now.

So the heaviest hours of rainfall will probably be from one to three in Titletown, but it's not looking like a lot of rain.

A lot of areas in Wisconsin already picked up a quarter of an inch to a half an inch today.

and they're just looking at a 10th of an inch.

So you're really, really looking out in tidal town.

It is going to be decent rain.

You know what I mean?

Like we're not going to get a heavy downpour soaking.

You're just going to need the pond show.

It'll just be a few hours and it'll clear on out of here.

High temperatures though, only hitting about 50 and with the winds gusty around 20 miles per hour, I think it's really going to be feeling like the low 40s out there today.

Plus

the

rain on

top of

it.

But you were saying the heavy stuff throughout the day, but the next round, it starts at like six o'clock central time.

So you're saying by evening, things will be better.

Yep.

So for TV, we're going to look perfect.

But if you're going there for the festivities, anywhere between noon to five, you're going to get some rain.

Okay.

But the rest of the weekend looks good.

Yes, it does.

We have a gorgeous high pressure system moving in.

It's actually going to clear our clouds far northwest early this evening.

That'll work its way through the state overnight, so we'll be waking up tomorrow to beautiful temperatures in the mid 50s to low 60s.

Plenty of sunshine and that holds for most of us on Sunday.

However, we are looking at a few scattered showers that want to move through the north Sunday afternoon.

Then Monday we've got some severe weather headed towards the state.

Yes, that is mentioned in just a minute here by Robin Tigerton, who says good morning from Tigerton.

It's cloudy, rain 44 degrees.

We need the rain as we are getting into the growing season.

I was busy getting all the trees trimmed and loose limbs from the March ice storm.

I was happy the Packers got a wide receiver in the

first

round of the NFL Draft last night in Matthew Golden.

Brittany will have to be weather savvy on Monday with the possibility of severe weather late Monday to which Brittany is like, don't tell me how to do my job.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Rob's giving us the

forecast on the forecast.

Rob notes a 5107 inch of rain in Tigerton, again, right there on the edge of the rain.

And have a great weekend, three of the best people on morning radio and social media every day.

Thanks,

Rob.

We appreciate that, Rob,

very

much.

Brittany, thank you so much.

We'll talk

to you a little

later.

Sounds

good.

All right.

A reminder that you can sign up for our daily newsletter.

Head over to upnorthnewswi.com.

It's National License Plate Day commemorating the start of license plates in starting in New York State this week in 1901 and a little bit about Wisconsin's license plates as well.

Mr. Bach is a part of the team of Jane Mattenair and Greg Bach, coincidentally.

Mattenair on Air, which follows this fine program and I believe you will be recombobulating at some point today.

Absolutely.

We're going to have Dan Schaefer on the show in the second hour at 10 because we have new hours nine to 11.

Dan will be coming onto the show talking about probably talking about the draft, probably talking about the bucks and all the news happening coming out of Madison, Milwaukee, all over the state and all over the country.

You never know.

But that starts at 11 in this.

I'm sorry.

I tried I wanted so hard

you were so

there

so close

He'll be coming in the 10 o'clock hour and then we'll wrap up the entire show and wrap up the week as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing

All right.

Hey, do you still have the draft audio handy of the Packers pick?

I'd like to play that again.

I'll set it up for folks because I went to bed before the pack and they drafted 23rd.

There was no way Grandpa was staying up for all of that.

And so for folks who hadn't heard it yet, hadn't heard the news, the Packers have become legendary or should I say a running joke for

never picking up receivers in the draft and it gets some some fans rather frustrated.

So give a listen to this next 90 seconds or so.

You know, a minute plus of Mark Murphy coming up and announcing the Packers pick and the crowd goes wild.

So do the TV announcers.

Give a listen.

With a 23rd pick in the 2025 NFL draft, the 13 time world champion, Green Bay Packers.

For the first time since 2002 Listen to this crowd.

Oh, baby Matthew Golden why?

I'll tell you what timing is everything you wait till the draft is in Green Bay you go get a man for the green and

You can't script this any better.

Everybody in this entire crowd wanted a wide receiver, Rich, and they came through for

him.

Listen to this crowd.

Literally, the crowd went wild.

And you had the go-pack go cheer going on for quite a while after that.

Well, I missed it live.

It was great to listen to it this morning.

Hope you enjoyed it as well.

And Greg, all we can do now is lift our expectations too high, right?

Exactly.

Well,

we'll take that Super Bowl ring now, please.

Thank you very much, right?

Is

that what

we do as Packer fans?

Should I watch more football this season, Pat?

No, keep it just where it is.

We're just the right amount because again, we set those expectations too high.

You just get your heart broken.

There you go.

That's right.

I'm

already a brewer's fan.

That's a, yeah, well, let's talk about that.

The Brewers fell short, lost three out of four in San Francisco, six to five yesterday.

Christian Yelich misplayed a routine sack fly, allowing the go ahead and run to score.

So the Brewers move on to St.

Louis for a three game series starting tonight and the coverage begins at 640 on several Civic Media radio stations and of course the Bucks are down 0-2

in their best of seven series against the Indiana Pacers.

The game is tonight in Milwaukee and you can catch it on NBA TV outside of the Milwaukee market.

Let's bring former U.S.

Attorney Jim Santel in here for a moment.

He's going to be part of the rest of the panel with Jennifer Schulze and Mark Jacob coming up in just a bit.

But Jim.

I wanted to take care of a pretty serious matter here first just because it was in the courts and that was sentencing yesterday for the Highland Park Illinois Parade Shooter and it's tie-in to Madison.

Can you tell us a bit about what the sentencing was that was handed down for that mass murder?

Absolutely.

This is Robert Cremo, Sierra IMO.

He was the person who on 4th of July parade in Chicago Highland Park not too far away from where Greg is this morning and you and I as well just a northern Chicago summer and open fire and he was sentenced on Thursday to seven consecutive life sentences.

That is reflective of the fact that seven people were killed in that melee.

one life term for each of the people killed, and also sentenced to a 50-year term in prison for each of the 48 people who were wounded at that parade as well.

Literally, in excess of 1,000 years, significantly not eligible for parole.

At the time of the sentencing, Judge Victoria Rosetti, she's a Lake County circuit court judge, says that he is irretrievably depraved, demonstrating no remorse for his actions.

No sentence, she said, can ever change the events of July 4th, nor can it compensate for the loss of a loved one.

Two days of hearings, just these past couple of days, presented by victims, families, others affecting the community.

Again, another sobering reminder, not only of our great problems here in America, related to guns and, yes, indeed, this was assault weapon again, but also the ways in which it can and does affect all of us.

He plainly had some plans also to come to Madison, plainly apprehended before that happened.

And we don't know what kind of carnage that could have followed that as well.

But again, a time of reflection on who we are as a nation, thinking not only about the victims there and the others who were injured, but also what we need to do desperately in this nation to address guns.

The Illinois legislature did respond.

The Supreme Court continues to require that you focus on the past in order to justify

present regulations, reasonable rational regulations when it comes to guns in America.

This was in 2022, the 4th of July when this happened.

And yes, again, after what he did in Highland Park, he came up to Madison and I guess scouted out potentially a 4th of July parade that was going on.

And then ultimately, for whatever reason, decided not to and disposed of the weapon.

But thankfully, because alerts had gone out, witnesses were looking and

recognize the car that they were told about and were able to tip off police and make that arrest.

So we thought we would bring a little bit of closure to that.

Jim, of course, will have much more about this and so much more on Amicus Law Review Saturday mornings, 9 to 11 on Civic Media stations around Wisconsin, played back on Sunday as well.

You can get all the details at civicmedia.us.

So we'll look forward to.

all of the coverage that you're going to have on that.

And of course, everything that's coming up in our Week in Review panel coming up in a little bit throughout the course of this hour.

So here's what we've got still ahead here from the Civic Media Radio Network here live from Lake Wissota.

It's our full Week in Review panel with Mark Jacob and Jennifer Sholesy joining the conversation.

Then in our eight o'clock hour, we will talk to Dr. Kristen Lyrely and the Donald Trump plan to make more babies in America.

which is really odd given all the other ways you could address a worker shortage in this country.

We will have a live conversation with Devin Remaker.

He's candidate for chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party as well.

And of course, more reaction to the NFL Draft.

The green and gold flannel shirt is out today for a reason.

From the heart of America's Up North, live from Lake Wissota.

Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pac Wright Long.

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglo powered by Up North News.

Now, for my Lake Mesota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglo.

Thank you, Don Rue.

Good morning, 806.

Nice to have you here up north on this Friday morning, April 25th, 2025.

I've got a lot to cover today.

We're going to be talking at the bottom of the hour here with Devin Remaker.

He is the current executive director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

He's also one of the candidates running to be the next state party chair for Wisconsin Democrats.

So we will talk a bit about that coming up in our second half hour.

But right now we have Dr. Kristen Lahrle and we have meteorologist Brittany Merleau with us.

We'll be talking about the draft.

We will be talking about a a what we talked about with Kia Vakil in our 6 a.m.

Hour a Texas legislator wants to pass a bill that would allow wastewater to be checked for abortion pills and birth control pills because I mean can can big government get any bigger for these folks and also the Trump White House wants you to be out there making more babies ladies like

I could not say it any more smarmy if I tried.

I am

doing my part,

Pat.

You did your four boys.

That's it.

So we'll get into that in just a second.

But first, Brittany is back with us to talk about the forecast where, again, Kristen, her boys were at the draft last night and they escaped a lot of the rain, which was really nice.

But you can't get away from it all day today, can you?

No.

Unfortunately, a few of that little bit of drizzle is moving through the Fox Valley right now.

It's their first little bit of rain.

And of course, a lot of it, the heavy, the steadier rain is sitting just northwest of the Fox Valley.

It is raining from pretty much northeast Wisconsin into Wausau all the way to La Crosse.

And that is going to be shifting its way towards the lake in towards Green Bay.

And it's going to be raining for a good chunk of the afternoon pretty much from noon to five.

Expect some

night rainfall, I'd say the heaviest is going to be coming down from one to three.

You are looking at about a quarter of an inch of rain headed your way today and it's breezy to and chilly temperatures are only going to make it to 50 degrees in Green Bay.

We're looking at some forties only up north and some mid fifties down south for high temperatures.

And of course, those winds are breezy to gusting up to 30 miles per hour out of the north, keeping us cooler.

adding a windshield to that too.

So of course, it's just damp dreary and raw out there, but we are going to see those clouds clear as we go through tonight.

They're actually going to start clearing far northwest early this evening.

So you may see some spots of sunshine, but.

by the lake and off to the east.

It's going to wait till overnight and tomorrow we've got tons of sunshine on tap.

It will be beautiful.

We'll hold on to that for most of the day on Sunday before more rain rolls in and that looks to bring some strong to severe thunderstorms on Monday.

Now, I think a lot of folks for the draft were, you know, staying in hotels or, you know, verbose or bed and breakfast areas.

I'm sure a couple of people were in, you know, some campgrounds or, you know, maybe pitched a tent in somebody's front yard, which

brings me to Dr. Lirely, who is not that terribly far away from Lambeau Field.

Did you rent out any of the rooms?

Do you have anybody camping in your front yard for the draft?

Did you make money off this in any way, shape, or form?

I have not, but my house is full of kids, my own kids and other people's kids, so I'm happy.

And Brittany, I'd like a do-over.

Could we please just like roll the dice again and have a different forecast?

Where's my magic eight ball, right?

Right.

I was like, why did Mother Nature pick this of all times?

I mean, that's luck of the draw, but like we were saying yesterday, it's a big storm system.

There would have been a lot of NFL cities that would have gotten rain had the draft happen in their place.

Robin Tigerton still with us saying, thank you, Kristen, for all you're doing to help motivate people.

We are very lucky to have Kristen around,

so.

Aw, thanks, Rob.

Rob's the

best.

Yes.

Brittany, thank you so much for the weather update.

As always, you're the best.

Have a

great day, Brittany.

You, as well.

Kristen, so you were talking about maybe heading over to the draft, maybe getting on your bike and going on down there, but life got in the way.

My bike plan is tomorrow.

I've got it all mapped out, Pat.

So

I

have a meeting this afternoon that goes until about, when did you say the rain was gonna end?

Five?

My meeting

goes until

about five.

I'm gonna head down there.

But my kids were down there last night.

They had a blast.

Did you hear about Clay Matthews?

Yes.

And I, you know, I did not want to rub it in on Dan when he was here just a moment ago because they're, you know, Steve, Michael's passing away and everything.

But when Clay Matthews got up there and said, I have a message from the president, the bears still suck.

And the crowd goes wild.

And it was, it was such a great moment.

And I did, I did really like.

People might say it's gimmicky.

I disagree.

I liked it when the commissioner came out along with some of the Packer players on kids' bikes.

Yeah.

Just like for training camp.

I thought that was a nice touch.

They have a whole thing like that tomorrow morning.

There are so many different events that are happening.

There's food.

There's all this like Wisconsin kitschy stuff.

It is they went full bore northeast Wisconsin.

If you are in the area, please stop by the draft.

They had to close the doors last night around, I don't know, 5 30 maybe because it had reached capacity.

People are so excited having such a great time and it's not just in the draft area.

It's downtown.

It's all around.

You can just feel the buzz.

Here

was my one question, though, when the parking lot basically filled up.

It was like the world's best tailgate party kind of sort of.

But then the spillover was in the stadium.

They said, just go on in the stadium.

You could see the bowl starting to fill up with fans.

There's my question.

I'm sure the bathrooms were open.

They better have been.

But were their concession stands open if you were in there?

Because if there weren't, then you were just sitting there on the bleachers watching the Jumbotron, but then you decided you were hungry or something, and you were kind of out of luck.

I'm

pretty sure they

were.

I mean, I wasn't there and I didn't hear firsthand, but I'm pretty sure they were.

And there's so much food like in the whole area.

There are so many food trucks and local folks who brought in.

I mean, it's cheese.

It's the stuff that we're used to, but the rest of the country doesn't know about.

Remember when the world discovered fried cheese curds?

Oh, yes.

And we were

like, yeah, of course.

We were, we, I was talking last night with some folks who were watching the draft and, you know, they're, they're

about my age as well.

But they, you know, they spent their childhood in Wisconsin.

And they said, you know, I'm old enough to remember cheese curds weren't always the big deal that they are.

They was just like, Well, here's some leftover way.

We should do something with it.

And, you know, much like it reminds me of how buffalo, you know, chicken wings, buffalo wings used to not be a big deal.

People thought wings were like the scrap.

And somebody got the idea to market those and

Make a killing and now we all think chicken wings are the best and the same goes for cheese curds.

Those just some leftover product.

It's like, no, everybody loves these now.

Yep.

And they've got some really fun beers on tap with really cool, like very Wisconsin names.

It's just, it's a love fest for Wisconsin.

Yeah.

Um, let's see, uh, from the text line here, Matt in Germantown, uh, back to our history lesson, we missed the most important birthday today.

He writes mine.

Matt.

Happy birthday, Matt.

There you go.

Happy birthday to you.

Thanks for writing in.

A lot of texts, a lot of comments today will not get to them all.

And I just wanted to thank everybody for putting something in, especially when you put what city you're listening in or what town.

We love to hear that and get a feel for where everybody is out there.

Oh, how do we get into this?

Let's go in by People Magazine.

When People Magazine is covering something from the Trump administration, you understand this is a big deal.

Here's the headline.

Trump's team ponders how to make women have more babies.

One idea was part of Hitler and Stalin's playbook.

Ideas for parenting incentives such as a national medal of motherhood for six-time moms comes amid steadily declining birth rates across the U.S.

And they've talked about like one idea is to give a $5,000 cash baby bonus to American mothers when they give birth.

Kristen.

You've given birth to four nice baby boys.

Tell me what $5,000 would do to entice somebody to have a baby in this day and age.

What I really want to talk about is comparing Hitler's plan versus Stalin's.

I would go with Hitler because he starts at four kids and Stalin starts at six.

It's right.

It does.

Yes.

And it's a

cool looking metal, except for the swastika in the middle of it.

Apparently

people wore it with pride.

I did a little research last night.

Also, the cost of producing these metals and all of the stuff around giving the metals, it was extensive.

And in Hitler's world, they took away

military medals to focus on these like mom-producing baby medals.

That's how important this was in the Nazi regime.

So this is the whole thing that they are tapping into.

That's not surprising when we're hearing about things like registries of people with autism and some of these other things that they've borrowed

from the Nazi money.

And of course, grabbing people off the streets.

So I mean, can we look, people are gonna say, don't trash motherhood, not trash and motherhood.

Let's call this what it is, kids.

It's race-based.

If you're trying to round up all the brown people and ship them off to camps and try to restrict migration, but you're basically saying, let's have more American babies.

We know what you're talking about.

We know what you're talking about because it's exactly what they were doing in Germany and in Russia.

How about you just embrace the fact that we are a nation of migrants, migrant labor.

We have such a worker shortage here.

But even if you skip that, Kristen, again, $5,000 versus, say, childcare assistance, health insurance, paid family leave.

I mean, there are things they could actually do that new moms would love to see.

Yeah.

you know, if we would just invest into our infrastructure, if we could make sure that everybody had access to quality, affordable healthcare, and I'm talking about not just when you're pregnant, but all the time.

If we really want to make America healthy again, make sure people can get to the doctor when they're sick.

Because I don't know about you, Pat.

I used to be able to afford that.

Now it's really expensive.

That's why people are getting so much information off of TikTok because they can't afford to go to the doctor.

So how about we make our health system affordable?

accessible in rural areas.

We know that people who are having babies in rural areas have twice the likelihood of having a bad outcome because they can't get to the doctor.

It's just not there for them.

They can't afford healthcare.

So start there and then expand to childcare.

Let's make sure that childcare is accessible and affordable.

How about housing?

Let's make sure that people can live in houses that they can afford, that they have food that they can afford.

Do you know what the number one reason is?

why people don't want to have babies?

Pew did a study on this.

The number one reason is they don't want to.

They don't want to because of the number two reason, the state of the world.

So how about we solve some problems and make the state of the world better so we can all be out there and then we're gonna have babies.

I like that idea better.

Every day for some 500 radio shows now, I end the show going, I wonder if I have a clip that I could turn into a video for social media.

And some days it's really easy.

Thank you, Kristen, for that.

Now I got to end on something that is as troubling as it is funny in its own weird way, that there are Texas legislators who want to introduce a bill that will require water utilities to test the wastewater for chemical byproducts related to the use of the abortion pill or birth control pill.

And they're doing it, of course, under the guise of environmental protection.

This is wackadoodle stuff.

Great idea fellas.

Yeah.

Yep.

You're doing a great job brownie I Don't even know what to say.

I obviously this is ridiculous if we're trying to cut waste fraud and abuse This is a program that's gonna cost money and it's gonna result in what?

Investigations of women, of course, so it's like okay somewhere.

It's they're gonna know don't like okay now We're gonna look at the water just in this quadrant and then the water just here and

It can't possibly get any more handmade tail goofball than that, but this is this is Texas

Boys and girls.

And by the way, we talked about, talked about this with Keva Keel and he's got a strong reaction to it too in our six a.m.

hour.

So head over to the Civic Media website or get the show by podcast and you can listen back to some of our past hours.

Still ahead this hour, Devon Remaker, candidate for a state Democratic Party chair from the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota.

Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlow and this is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

It's Friday morning.

Welcome back here live from Lake Wissota and beautiful Depeere, Wisconsin, where we find Dr. Kristen Lyrely, who did not attend the NFL Draft, but, you know.

made

I will

made some of the babies who did so did

I did not I did my own children I'm like made the bit that's weird that just sounds weird

again that's that's from the White House we've got to encourage baby making so whatever gets it done I guess

just monitor my water my wastewater yeah that's right let's be done with it

Kristen now has a weekend show

on parts of the Civic Media Radio Network, through the app, on the station in Green Bay, I assume in Oshkosh as well.

So this would be, tomorrow would be episode three, right?

Tomorrow is episode three.

I had the most wonderful conversation with our old friend, Dr. Patrick McBride from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and guess what we talked about?

What?

Medical research.

We talked a lot about medical research.

He himself is an NIH researcher.

So the Trump administration's cuts that are stifling, stopping, preventing us from doing this fundamental research that is really life-changing.

I mean, research on Alzheimer's and cancer, and you've heard all of this.

the impact is profound.

So Dr. McBride goes into that, talks about how it's affecting the university, the researchers themselves, what this means for the future of Wisconsin.

It is an incredible conversation.

And for the cherry on the top at the end, we talk a little bit about Wisconsin sports because this is the guy who was the first bat boy for the Brewers when the Brewers came back to Milwaukee.

And then he was involved with the Bucks.

And the Packers, we talk about Junior Bridgeman and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

It's just some really fond memories.

Dr. McBride is a treasure trove of conversation.

I

was going to say, this will not be, this better not be his last appearance on your

show.

Oh gosh, no.

I mean, the guy is just a walking history book of Wisconsin sports.

And his own personal story is so compelling.

And if you have not read his book yet,

you really should the luckiest boy in the world I believe is the title of it and it is it covers it all covers sports it covers growing up with alcoholic parents it covers again going into a life of public health and

we had we had some we had a good run there christian with public health but from the milwaukee journal sentinel this morning the medical college of wisconsin in the milwaukee area where my wife went to medical school the medical college of wisconsin has lost about five million dollars in research grants has frozen some hiring and halted development of a new physician assistant program due to funding uncertainty driven by trump administration policies again heck of a job brownie

Yeah, this is exactly what we were just talking about.

When we take these training opportunities away, we know we already don't have enough healthcare providers, especially in rural areas.

So when we take away these programs because of funding issues, people in rural areas suffer disproportionately more.

Okay.

The Trump administration has canceled eight research grants to the medical college so far, according to John Raymond, the college president.

They are among hundreds of NIH grants that have been canceled nationwide, specifically because the medical research is related to transgender issues or COVID-19.

or somehow ties into diversity, equity, and inclusion, which again, gets back to the whole matter of, you know, make America white again, and, you know, make America doubt science, and let's try to essentially eliminate an entire population of our community in the trans community.

These are all things where research is so critically necessary, and instead, it is a direct attack on fellow Americans who...

they would like to just disappear.

It's not just the trans community, obviously, the women's health initiative.

Yes.

They defunded the women's health initiative, which is a giant study that's been going on for decades that primarily looks at women later in life.

So women who are beyond their reproductive potential, so they're not worthy.

They're not worth anything anymore.

So they, they.

defunded that but the last thing I heard and of course everything is chaotic and unstable right now is that they were thinking twice about that and likely to keep it going because the last person you want to piss off is a post-menopausal woman.

Can I hear a hell

yeah.

Hell yeah.

But the thing about that is that kind of volatility.

that it's on again and it's off again.

The tariffs are a great example of it.

It's now that you no longer go, well, if we just hold out hope, maybe the mad king will change his mind and make this go away.

You're no longer hoping for it to go away.

You no longer assume it will go away.

It might, but then he might change his mind again.

And so it's a permanent state of doubt.

In this case, the medical college says that they have a soft hiring freeze in place right now.

simply because they just don't know what to expect.

And as soon as one announcement is made, it could be repealed, but then it could be quietly put back into effect.

This is the worst way to run a government.

It's entirely chaotic.

And that's like...

this on the upper level.

Think about how it's affecting all of the individuals.

Think of how it's affecting these researchers who have been studying this information.

This is what they got their undergrad degree in and their graduate degrees and their postgrad.

These are the experts in the field who are doing the work and suddenly poof, it's gone.

How does that affect you and your family and your livelihood and your community and the research community?

The ripple effects are monumental.

But to the Trump administration, this is waste, fraud, and abuse.

They don't even know what's happening because they're using a machete to make these ridiculous and unsustainable cuts.

And by the way, when times change and they will, it's not like everybody just comes back to their microscope and the slide is still there where we left it.

You have to start these trials over again.

You have to start these studies over again.

It is just an absolute mess that will affect us for many years after Trump is in the ground.

And

the cost.

And the

cost.

And the cost.

Kristen, thank you.

Have a great time at the Draft tomorrow.

I'm going to.

It's going to be the best week I've never had.

I can't wait to report back on Monday.

I

cannot wait for that.

We'll see you, Kristen, Monday morning at 6.30.

See you later, my friend.

Coming up next, Devon Remaker, candidate for State Democratic Party Chair.

First a reminder to sign up for our newsletters.

Plural at upnorthnewswi.com.

Live from Lake Wissota, I'm Pat Krightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

I know it's radio, but I still want to thank Adam in Oregon, Wisconsin for using the text line to send us a photo from the draft last night and he was in a great spot in the crowd there.

Wonderful lighting, just a mass of people and all looked like they're having a good time.

I've heard nothing but good things, you know, so far that that came out of it and and the Packers Drafted a receiver.

Who to thunk?

What what amazing times that we live in.

So round two of the draft will be this evening.

Hopefully the rain that Brittany talked about falling throughout the course of the day today will let up just in time for the second round and that things go smoothly tomorrow for the rest of the draft as well.

So that's the big event this weekend.

For Wisconsin Democrats, there's a big event coming up in mid June.

There will be the usual state party convention.

Republicans do the same thing.

And in these off years is typically when they have elections for positions like chair of the state party.

And Ben Wickler has been the state party chair for these past six years and is stepping down, not running for another term.

That has opened up the field so far with three candidates running for that slot.

We're going to talk to one in just a second.

First, want to remind you that we talked to Joseph Pecky yesterday.

We've talked to him frequently on Thursdays and he announced his candidacy on the show a week ago, gave us an update yesterday.

We heard from William Garcia on Wednesday.

He is the chair of the third congressional district Democrats and we have put that interview up on our YouTube page.

So head over to the Up North News YouTube page and you can see that to learn more about him.

And we're going to do the same thing with the next candidate that we're going to be talking to right here, Devin Remaker from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and candidate to be the next chair.

Devin, good morning.

How are you?

I'm fantastic.

You already mentioned that we took up for the first time in 23 years an offensive weapon,

a

wide receiver last time in the draft, so I'm feeling pretty great.

Yes, I mean, it's just a great new chapter here and it'll be a new chapter for the State Democratic Party as well.

We caught you here before you hit the road and I know all three of you and any others who might get in the race.

I mean, there is nothing but road work involved here, especially this time of year.

You've got the congressional district level

conventions that are happening this weekend and scattered throughout the course of the calendar here.

So you're getting up there and you are, you are familiar name to me, you are familiar name to party stalwarts throughout Wisconsin.

For all the convention delegates, some

are active, some are a little less active.

They may have heard the name, but they haven't met the person yet.

So we love that we've got this radio program where folks who are running for office like yourself, we can just open it up, give you the platform and say, all right, what is it you're doing with the party right now, Devin Remacher?

And what would you like to do as chair?

Tell us all about it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And great to be here.

So I am currently, presently on leave from the party where I've been a senior advisor to the party since the end of 2023.

And I'm on leave because I want to make sure that as I'm running for this position, there's no sense of impropriety about, you know, my role with the party here at the convention.

But for me, this is a really great opportunity to do something that used to be much more central to my role, which is getting out there and talking to folks.

all over the state.

I've had the honor and the privilege of working for two chairs of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

First chair, Martha Lanning, and most recently for the past almost six years now, chair Ben Wickler.

And I think he has just left us a fantastic foundation to build upon.

I was served as his executive director for almost half of his tenure.

And I really got to see firsthand what it takes to run the party at the level that it's currently operating at, where we have budgets in excess of

almost 50 million.

We have over 200 staff in almost all of these election cycles and it's a pretty big machine and I think that machine needs a little bit of fine-tuning in places but it's something that I don't want to see that we have to hit the brakes on this year.

I

want to be

able to hit the gas because I think that Democrats have the rare opportunity in 2026 to have the right maps and hopefully knock on wood.

the right political environment to be able to win a trifecta and do the thing that I think a lot of Democrats are hoping to do, which is get off defense and go on offense and pass the progressive policy agenda that improves people's lives.

So I'm in this race because I think I'll be ready on day one to grab that baton from Ben and

run

with it.

We're going to continue to look ahead at what the Democratic Party of Wisconsin needs, but let me just look back a little bit longer and ask you a bit more about your prior to working at the Democratic Party.

You have ample experience with candidates and elected officials that have taken you to where you are today.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I started my career with State Representative Steve Doyle.

actually, who for a long time has been the Democrats that has held the most Republican district in this state.

He essentially has all of La Crosse County, except for the city of La Crosse.

at least when I worked for him, he did.

And it really sort of helped me, I think, get a thorough understanding of how you need, how Democrats can win and how we need to win and reach voters, especially in rural areas and sort of 50-50 toss-up parts of the state, which I sort of backed up by then going to work for Congressman Ron

Kynes

in the sprawling third congressional district.

I started first as his field director and eventually became his campaign manager from 2016.

through the start of 2018.

But that was really a great experience.

We had 18 counties in the congressional district.

It's also the congressional district with the most UW campuses and the most UW students in the state.

And I think it really helped me understand how things could be incredibly different in different parts of the state.

Eau Claire is different than La Crosse is different than Portage is different than Jackson, Pepp and Buffalo, you name it.

And I think there's definitely different needs and struggles.

both county parties and the people in those areas.

And I think that working for Congress behind really, really ingrained in me a sense of how we need to make sure that we're reaching folks everywhere, not just in major cities.

Yeah, that is always been a key point with anybody running for any kind of leadership position in the state Democratic Party is to have this, this broad statewide view of what to do and that there isn't a one size fits all system.

Before I get

to that almost local level of things.

I do want to say just from a, you know, a 30,000 foot view, you're feeling on where the Democratic Party overall needs to go.

And I say that in light of a very good outcome for Democrats seeing Susan Crawford elected to the Supreme Court, but months earlier seeing Donald Trump win the state of Wisconsin again.

There's been

No shortage of post-mortem pieces.

Most recently, Green Bay Mayor Eric Gennrich wrote something in Dan Schaeffer's Reconbobulation Area, and we will have him on the show Tuesday to hear his view of where the Democratic Party should go from here.

But since everybody else is giving their view, we want to hear that from you as well.

In light of recent events, both good and bad, where do you feel the Democratic Party of Wisconsin needs to go to?

maintain its successes, but then also pick up ground that, you know, it where it still needs to do like races for the White House and congressional district seats.

Yeah,

absolutely.

I mean, I think that the Democratic Party here in the state of Wisconsin is incredibly strong.

I think we have a strong set of leaders.

I think that what we

really need to do is make sure that we are reaching folks everywhere and not depending on somebody coming to save us from any sort of national committee or national campaign.

And I know that's been a focus of our work for years.

But I think that we saw particularly in 2024, to me, the biggest gap between sort of our message.

And I think it's easy to say,

you know, here's the combination of words that everyone's going to be saying this cycle or here's the magic set of words that we think is going to win people over.

But I think just as important as the words that we say is how we say them, how we approach conversations with people, how authentic that.

we and our candidates appear.

And I think that, you know, for as much as it makes Democrats and myself pull my hair out when people say, well, Donald Trump just says what he means.

And, you know, he seems authentic, despite the fact that many of the things he says are completely horrendous and objectionable.

I think that sometimes voters just aren't buying what we're selling, even when they agree with us on the issues.

And we know that they agree with us on the issues, whether it's protecting Social Security, protecting the

right to choose, protecting our very democracy.

People agree with us sort of fundamentally, but they just don't always buy it when we're trying to say it.

And I think that's part of that is sometimes when we are engaging in conversation with voters and just listening to Pete Buttigieg speak about this as well, it often feels like we are commanding people to come with us instead of inviting them to come with us and leaving space for there to be that, you know.

25 to 20 percent to 10 percent disagreement.

And I think that could be alienating to folks at a time when we need to sort of be making our tents even bigger.

And I think that one thing I really want to do at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is sort of really make sure that when we're doing things like deep canvassing over the course of this year or when we are training more passengers for our party.

And I think that we can't be competitive for only knocking on people's doors once a year.

And

we are losing the battle on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, local buy and sell pages, news and information pages.

People are just getting saturated.

with messaging every other one of those 364 days a year where we're not knocking

on their

door.

And I think that we need to both empower people with better information, better messaging, yes, but also the tools and the training and the confidence to be able to use it in a way that will bring people with us instead of leaving people behind because politics is ultimately the art of addition.

And I can say an amen to that one point.

In fact, of the folks putting things in the comment section, the one that stuck out is,

all of the texts, all of the emails, everything that's about the fundraising, and yet fundraising is an important component.

The next chair will have to be mindful of fundraising.

as well as messaging, as well as organizing the party at the state level and then at the local level as well, which is where I want to take us now to that local level.

And you know, from me as being a former chair, county chair for Chippewa County, you know, there's county chairs and county party members all through all greater Wisconsin that

have at times felt like their input is falling on deaf ears, not getting the resources they need, and things like that.

So as you talk to folks all over the state in your travels, like you will be in Hayward this weekend, what do you tell them about how you will run things if you are the next state chair?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think a fundamental part of my platform is having a 72-county strategy.

And I think that has been talked about before in Democratic politics, but would I mean it?

as is I want to have 72 county strategies.

So I think that we have had a laser focus on organizing at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

I think that's yielded fantastic results.

But as I was just saying, I don't think knocking on doors is enough, particularly at this moment in time in which we are seeing widespread backlash to the Trump administration, even in places that you wouldn't normally expect to see that.

I was just talking to the county party.

chair in Kenosha, and they had 150 people in Union Grove last weekend, you know, taking a stand.

And I think in order to be able to sort of capture all the energy that's out there and the biggest sort of funnel possible and make sure it stays with us heading into 2026 when we have so many critical elections, we need to support county parties everywhere.

And I think that starts with making sure that we have a team of folks that are actually dedicated to working with them going county by county, figuring out if they need more

more help with membership, more help with leadership.

As you know, it's hard to be a chair.

It's hard to do it cycle after cycle.

And we need to make sure that folks feel supported and

happy.

Devin Remaker is a candidate for the state party

chair.

If I'm elected chair, I'd be able to hire a team of folks who don't have, you know, with our organization.

Oh, sorry, Devin.

That's okay.

Devon Rembaker is candidate for state party chair for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Hey, remember, you can follow my team all day long and up north is wi.com.

And of course, right here mornings across the civic media radio network.

I'm Pat Kretler reminding you never settle for anyone who wants this nation to take a shortcut on its full promise of liberty and justice for all.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

you

The Milwaukee Brewers lost three out of four in San Francisco this week, dropping the ball literally yesterday and losing to the Giants six to five.

The Brewers are now in St.

Louis for a three game series starting tonight.

Coverage begins at 640 on several civic media stations.

Head over to civicmedia.us to learn more.

The Bucks are down 0-2 in their playoff series and they will be on NBA TV tonight for game three.

that's coming up tonight in Milwaukee.

Continuing our conversation now with Devin Remacher, who's a candidate for the state chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

And Devin, picking up where we left off here, talking about what needs to be done from an organizational standpoint, we were talking about at the local level of things.

You mentioned the note about year-round events, and I hear that a lot.

The need for year-round either canvassing or year-round training.

There is this perception that so many folks just kind of parachute in at election time and ask people for money and ask people for their vote.

That's not exactly true.

I mean, I certainly know from experience that state parties are a year-round operation.

But it certainly seems there are some visible things that could be done year round.

I wonder if you share that sentiment and what kinds of things a party could conceivably do differently if you're elected State Chair.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that I've been saying a lot that it feels like the Republican Party and Trump is on surround sound in a lot of our communities in this state.

And if our only way to reach people is by knocking on doors, which is fantastic, effective in something we need to do, we're leaving a lot on the table.

And I think part of that sort of county by county strategy building is going to involve thinking through, okay, in what way can we have more visibility in your community?

How can we help provide support for things that are relatively inexpensive, but I think impactful by having a presence at community events, farmers markets, parade registration fees, making sure that we have a consistent presence on the

continuing the office support program that I started at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin after my experience on the kind campaign, being able to help make sure that there are storefront offices that county parties can have year round.

And I think that the other part of it is there are a lot of folks who want training on how to use tools like reach to do relational organizing, which is when we have folks contact their friends and family that are saved as contacts in their phone and try to get them to vote and support our candidates.

But they're being left behind because we're doing a lot of those trainings by Zoom.

And some folks just aren't as familiar with how to go to the app store.

And they just need someone to be able to show them, here it is in the store.

Here's where it went on your phone.

This is your login.

It's different than your minivan login.

And really just take that little bit of extra time.

And then they'll get in there.

They'll get in the fight.

And I think there's just, I'm hearing an immense hunger.

People just want better tools.

And they want to be able to do more than just knock on doors.

And I think we need to have a Democratic Party that supports doing that, and yard signs.

I will say there's a big stigma with yard signs amongst operatives, and I've been a big believer, let's just get the signs out there, especially in rural areas.

you know whose yard that sign is it you know you drive down the street in Madison there might be 10 of them but you don't know most of them but that yard sign is effectively an endorsement when it's you know on the side of a highway with a person you know and I think that we need to encourage that a lot more and not look down upon

it.

Yeah I mean it's it I've always said it's affirmation and that's what people they may not

agree with their neighbor on everything, but if they see a sign for so-and-so, that tells them that somebody trusts them and it's worth giving them a shot.

There's the question that is an unfair one.

It's unanswerable.

It's putting you up on a tightrope, but guess what?

The entire Democratic Party is on a tightrope when it comes to this.

having convictions that might have the party appear too far to the left versus appealing to swing voters.

But then people also accuse you of being in the in the mushy middle.

And what I mean by that is this just these past few days, Democratic legislators have introduced bills that would roll back all restrictions on abortion care.

And yesterday, a bill was introduced that would

if it were passed in a referendum, become an amendment to the Constitution known as the Green Amendment, that would make sure we have protection of natural resources.

Now again, there folks will go, good, finally, no more of this mushiness on abortion or the environment.

Say what you're for.

But thanks to Donald Trump and the whole extreme wing of the party, there's a whole bunch of disaffected Republicans that you can appeal to, but also not if you sound

too far to the left.

It's a tightrope that the Democrats are on.

Can you talk a bit about the messaging challenge that you face when there's probably a majority of folks who actually have progressive values, but they don't embrace the Democratic label just yet?

How do you take that challenge and run with it?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I

I think the role of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is to support our elected officials and have their back.

You know, we are not sort of the policy engine in this state.

And I don't begrudge any legislator for any policy position they take that think that they believe will their constituent help get folks elected up and down the ballot.

Maybe a little bit different.

I think we need to focus on.

make sure that your Medicare, uh, mental right to choose, uh, making sure.

Dignity to live their lives, how they want to, uh, is really sort of where we need to see that, you know, we're not speaking crosswise in our mission to support Democrats up and down the ballot all across the state.

Uh, but to me, fundamentally, I think as long as Democrats are saying it.

authentically, clearly in speaking to their voters, that's going to resonate.

And I think that is naturally going to look different in different parts of the state.

Absolutely.

Devon Remaker is a candidate for chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Devon, it's always great to catch up with you.

Thank you so much for visiting with us.

And I'm sure we'll talk to you again before the convention.

Safe travels.